IGNITE kick-off

On 10 December 2024, Joshua Biron, Martin Auer and Silas Kruckenberg invited people to the kick-off event of IGNITE at Utopia. Around 35 students interested in startups and entrepreneurship accepted the invitation and came together to learn more about the new initiative.

In their opening speech, the founders explained why they consider an initiative like Ignite so important at Leuphana: “When we started studying, we would have wished for an initiative like this,” said Joshua. The idea was to create a point of contact for people interested in founding, especially for those who have had little contact with entrepreneurship in their degree programs so far. It is particularly important to the initiators to reach students from all fields of study, not only those studying business or International Business and Entrepreneurship (IBAE).

The three founders also made clear why they see great potential in Lüneburg and at Leuphana. On the one hand, the many professorships in entrepreneurship offer excellent opportunities. On the other hand, Lüneburg is an ideal location thanks to its good connection to the Hamburg metropolitan region and its well-connected founding ecosystem. Initiatives such as Utopia, the WLG and the IHK (Chamber of Commerce) also offer valuable support to founders. They particularly highlighted Leuphana’s interdisciplinary orientation, which is a real advantage for diverse founding teams.

The founders then presented the vision of Ignite and the three main goals of the initiative: promoting entrepreneurship, building a community of the most ambitious entrepreneurial talents and acting as a representative of the topic at the university. They stressed that it is important to them to involve participants actively in building and shaping the initiative. “We don’t want to simply dictate what Ignite should look like, it should become your initiative. We only want to give the impulse – your ideas are wanted!”

A keynote by Dr. Markus Lemmens, Head of Communications at Leuphana, rounded off the evening. Dr. Lemmens shared his own entrepreneurial experiences and explained why he thinks the initiative deserves support. There was also a spontaneous pitch by Leon Reumschüssel, co-founder of the Lüneburg AI startup Presada, who emphasized how important networks like Ignite can be for founding and running a successful company.

The evening ended in a relaxed atmosphere with cold drinks, great conversations and music. It was an inspiring start for the initiative, and we are looking forward to everything that is still to come!